by J. P. Rice
The dryad warrior had all the makings of a samurai in traditional armor and helmet, including a curved-blade katana. Granted the sword was wooden, but it still looked bad ass. The Asian warrior appeared in vivid detail, including a bushy mustache and big buck teeth sticking out of his thick lips.
Before I could react, a few more men walked out of the trunks and stroked their swords in preparation.
I took off my hoodie and wrapped the Blood Goblet inside. I tossed it back in the hole and kicked some dirt on it. Turning to Felix, I said, “Let’s go back to back. Get your magic ready to go if you haven’t already.”
“I’m rock and roll ready to go, bro,” he confirmed as blue sparks of electricity danced around his fists.
Standing on one of the highest peaks in the Appalachian Mountains, with only one friend on my side, I was surrounded by a small army of wooden Samurai warriors who seemed like they did not want us to leave with the Goblet.
Time for some action.
A light, cold drizzle started and a sudden breeze picked up.
“I’m going to form a fire sword to deal with these suckers. Let’s burn these mothers down.” I told Felix.
“Sounds good,” he replied.
I called on some fire and as soon as it appeared in my palm, I quickly manipulated it into sword form. I curved the blade to go scimitar-style as my mind focused on the task at hand. The wooden samurais drew back their swords and closed in on us.
I said, “You guys want to talk first? We can get you out of this forest. A nice new life in the city, perhaps?”
One of the men screamed wildly and raced toward me.
I drew my sword back, stared into his beady eyes, and said, “All right. We’ll go with plan B, then.”
He wound up and unleashed a mighty overhand strike that I blocked with my magic sword. It sounded like two pieces of strongly forged metal colliding and the swords rebounded off each other. I’d left a black burn mark on his wooden sword. My eyes danced around, anticipating his next move.
The smaller man took a wild stroke aimed at decapitating me. I ducked and heard the blade buzzing by, then countered with a smooth sidestroke across his midsection. The fiery blade ripped right through the wooden warrior, felling him in two pieces. No blood, just sap oozed from the mortal wound.
More men stepped up to defend their fallen friend. I could hear Felix screaming behind me, but I wasn’t about to turn around with two men closing in on me. Reforming my sword, I crafted it into the shape of a long staff. I took a quick peek behind me to make sure Felix was clear of my killing radius.
The rain picked up, but the fire dancing around my weapon didn’t relent. It was more concerning to me that we were losing daylight by the second.
Dissolving some of the flames on my weapon, I grabbed the middle of the staff and whirled it around. The fire beam crashed into one man’s wooden sword with a clang of metal. I reversed the rotational direction and whipped the staff around. It blazed straight into the warrior’s chest, leaving a molten trail in the gash. The man dropped to his knees and fell on his face into the mud.
I changed the staff back into straight-blade sword form as the second man came at me. A wild stroke of a deadly wooden sword missed to my left and my dodging motion carried me into a three-sixty. As I completed the spin, I ripped a cross-stroke, taking off the man’s sword arm at the elbow and cutting straight into his belly. And another one bit the dust.
This seemed like it would be one helluva workout, but these men didn’t seem like highly trained swordsmen. I waved my flaming sword in front of me to keep the enemy at bay and peeked over my shoulder. Felix was wrecking shop with his blue fire sword that looked like a light saber, setting the tree men ablaze with a single stroke.
The rain picked up, which was probably good. It was putting out the fires from the dryad warriors. I didn’t want to cause a forest fire, I just wanted to escape with the Goblet. The trees began to sway again, causing darker shadows in the dusk-like atmosphere.
Two more men approached me. The branches of the surrounding trees twisted and turned, casting darkness over the two men and causing them to disappear. I took a few steps back.
The wind rustled, and a voice came from the darkness, “If you take the Goblet, you will be cursed for the rest of your days.”
My head perked up and I asked, “Felix, you hear that shit?”
Out of breath, Felix said, “Yeah, I’m. Already. Cursed. I. Think.”
I agreed, “Fuck it. Me too.” Now if I could only locate my enemy, I’d be doing great.
A crushing blow to my biceps came out of nowhere. Suddenly, a shadow warrior appeared in front of me. Through the openings on his helmet, he appeared straight-faced and emotionless like an assassin. I unleashed a diagonal stroke that tore right through his wooden body and dropped the warrior. As I checked my upper arm for damage, the wooden sword hadn’t broken through my rune suit.
Another invisible stroke clobbered me in the ear with the flat of the sword. My vision blurred and my head went dizzy. My knees bent, ready to give out, when I caught myself, straightened up and took two staggering steps back. The wooden warrior reappeared as he was in mid-stroke. He raked his sword across the part of my body where my midsection met my upper body.
It not only chased the wind out of me, it felt like someone had run me over with a train. My lungs felt like they were going to explode, belly felt ill and my mouth went dry. As if those problems weren’t enough, the ground fissured, tree roots sprang out of the ground and tangled around my ankle.
As I looked down at the winding arm of roots snaking around my shoe and ankle, another stroke with the flat of the sword blasted me on my left cheek. A searing pain bounced from my cheek to my jaw, which started tingling in a worrisome way. Carefully stroking down toward my foot with my sword, I cut the tree roots away, although they were bound tightly around my ankle.
I stepped to my left to avoid the shady areas and the warrior appeared again. With his sword drawn back, he uncorked a stroke across my midsection. I jumped back, shoving my ass backward to narrowly avoid the incoming pain. His follow through left him unprotected and I drove the point of my fire sword into his chest.
The sword sank into the wooden man, who gasped, then shrieked, then fell. Unfortunately, my sword had gotten stuck in his chest. As I wrestled to pry the sword loose, a flash of brown wood appeared and crushed me in the temple.
Shooting stars streaked through my vision and my eyes watered. Another blurry sword screaming toward my face appeared at the last moment, and I raised my arm defensively. The blade ran across my forearm, leaving a trail of fiery pain in its path.
Using two fingers, I traced over the pain and checked out the damage. Blood. How? How could a wooden sword cut through my blessed rune suit?
Instead of messing with my fire sword that was stuck in a fallen warrior, I formed another fireball in my palm. Backing away to keep some distance from the shadow samurai warriors, I quickly turned it into another curved blade sword. The trees continued to sway, branches hiding the sinking sun, and in turn, hiding the arborous army coming after us.
I felt a presence behind me and spun around. Oh shit. I was completely surrounded as the rain picked up, drops sizzling as they hit my fire blade. Felix had disappeared in the middle of a cluster of warriors. I could hear him screaming like a tennis player after taking a shot, but I’d lost sight of my partner.
Re-forming the sword into a long staff, I positioned my hand in the middle. With a quick wrist motion, I twirled the staff around my body, creating a natural shield. Just when I was feeling somewhat safe for a moment, the earth fissured again, and a trail of angry tree roots attacked my other leg, winding around my calf with blinding speed.
The roots were wrapping up to my knee. I swung the staff down and cut them loose, leaving another bracelet from my ankle to my knee. Being at such a high altitude, I was already running out of breath. I’d been in much more exhausting brawls before, but this one was emptying
my tank faster than usual.
Fighting against my burning lungs, I whirled the staff around, taking out two more dryad warriors. I wondered how much longer I could keep this up. The warriors seemed to be endless and full of energy.
Felix screamed, “Fuck this. I’m putting a stop to this right now.”
My eyes followed my ears and my neck turned. I saw Felix shaping his sword into a fireball. He squeezed the ball in his palm and his hand started to glow. He raised his fiery fist above his head and dropped the hammer onto mother earth. A giant flash surrounded Felix’s body and set the ground of the forest ablaze.
The feral screams of the wooden men filled my ears as I scooted into a safe area that had been extinguished by the falling rain. Two men engulfed in flames ran toward me. I got up on my toes so that I could dodge left or right, but the two men collapsed five feet in front of me and flailed around on the ground for a few moments before finally going still.
I screamed, “Yeah. Ya’ll fucked up now. I gave you an option to get out of here. Motherfuckers.”
Looking around, I realized that Felix’s spell had ignited all the tree men, but none of the trees. Well done, my friend. The heavy downpour was helping control the flames, so the trees were safe for the moment. I kept my guard up, waiting for newly formed men to attack from the trunks of the evergreens.
After a minute of no new warriors coming out of the woodwork, I realized the attack was over. I turned to Felix. “How did you do that?”
Felix sat down with his vape pen already in hand. He lay back and took a giant hit, exhaling the cinnamony smoke into the rainy air. “Bro, I just worked with what we had.” He took a few more hits and explained, “I cut a piece off one of the warriors and I used that to cast the spell so that only the creatures with that specific makeup would be attacked by the flames. I tried to keep the bushes and trees safe.”
Whoa. That was pretty fucking brilliant. Why hadn’t I thought of that? “We make a pretty good team. One of us always figures out a way to get out of a jam.”
Felix puffed away on his vape pen and I wondered how those things were better than cigarettes. He seemed rather addicted to whatever the hell went into those machines.
Felix asked, “You still have the Goblet, right?”
I darted over to the hole in the ground and couldn’t see my hoodie. Not good. I kneeled down and frantically flung dirt out of the hole with both hands. Swiping at the dirt, my fingers hooked on some black material. I exhaled in relief and pulled my hoodie out.
Unwrapping the cotton garment, I felt a weird power emanating from the Goblet.
Felix tucked his vape pen into his pocket and said, “So. It’s going to be dark real soon. Should we camp out up here and go back down tomorrow?”
He answered his own question before I had a chance to speak, “We could sleep here. I would be worried that these trees are going to create more warriors to come after us. Maybe if we took sleeping shifts, we could stay aware.”
“The thing is that we only have two people. If one falls asleep that only leaves one person to stay on watch. That’s a pretty small margin for error especially after an exhausting brawl like that. If we had four or five people and a few could stay on watch, I’d say, let’s do it. But maybe we should head out.”
He pulled his vape pen out and hit it again. “Give me a few more minutes to catch my breath,” said Felix as smoke poured out of his mouth and nose.
More than a few minutes later, we created natural flashlights with our hands and began the great descent. We had the Blood Goblet in our possession. In hindsight, I was obviously glad I’d accompanied Felix on this adventure. Not to toot my own horn, but he would have probably been fucked without me.
We now had the power to reverse any curse the sorcerers could set on Cyclone Woman. We just had to visit Fukutama so he could tell us how to use the Goblet against the Seven Sorcerers.
Chapter 10
I finally got to sit down on my couch to relax after the exhausting trip to capture the Blood Goblet. I kicked my feet up on the coffee table and sank back into the cushions. My phone started ringing. Police Sirens. It meant the call was coming from Gretchen Meyer, my associate on the Pittsburgh Police Department of the Occult. Maybe I shouldn’t answer it. She was probably going to yell at me for not getting back together with her daughter.
What the hell. I swiped accept and put the phone up to the side of my head. “Hello.”
“Merlino.” She sounded cranky as usual.
“This is he.”
I heard her riffling through papers in the background. “I have a situation I might need your help on. We arrested a man a little while ago. I’m not really sure how to say this so I’ll just come out with it. He has three eyes. The third one is in the middle of his forehead.”
Jackpot. “Where are you at?”
Gretchen answered, “I’m at the station in Squirrel Hill near the Jewish Community Center.”
“Keep him there.” I started gathering my wallet and keys. “I’m leaving now. Right now.”
I grabbed a roll of duct tape, ran out the door and jumped into the driver’s seat. The tires squealed as I made a one-eighty and jammed down the gas pedal.
Speeding across the Highland Park Bridge, I pumped the brakes. Getting pulled over for speeding would really slow things down. I zoomed across town and parked in front of the station. Hopping out of the car, I ran across the street and into the station.
Gretchen met me at the front desk and whisked me down a narrow hallway with rooms on either side. “It’s right there on the right. Room AE.”
As I walked down the hall, I asked, “Did he have any ID on him? Or any possessions?”
“No. Just those robes he’s wearing and a top hat we took away from him. And all that weird body jewelry of bones and whatnot that he was wearing. We didn’t find any identification, and he refuses to tell us his name,” Gretchen explained.
I waited outside the room. “I know his name. If you hear me yell, bust on in. Otherwise, let me have some time with this guy.”
Gretchen nodded. I twisted the door knob slowly and kicked the door open to make a dramatic entrance into the interrogation room. I entered a plain gray room with a table in the middle. A cylindrical light fixture was hanging about five feet above the table.
Kobayashi sat in a chair on one side of the table and I took a seat across from him. Stripped of all his body jewelry, he looked smaller today.
I’d almost forgotten something as I stared at his ugly face. I pulled the duct tape out of my pocket and walked around the table. Kobayashi had his hands still cuffed behind him, but I needed to take care of one more issue.
I pulled on the tape and stretched out a nice long piece. Even with his hair covering his third eye, I didn’t want to take any chances. Starting with his forehead, I put the tape over his third eye and wrapped it around his head. I ripped off a few more pieces and made sure he couldn’t see out of that eye. I didn’t need him looking into my soul or bringing up something from my past.
I returned to the other side of the table and sat down. “You might know who I am, but I definitely know who you are. Kobayashi.”
He grinned and spoke in a Japanese accent, “Congratulations. If you free my hands, I could clap for you. But it will do you no good.”
I wanted to smack the smug look off his face. “I know you kidnapped Cyclone Woman. I know your game and I’m going to bring you down.”
He laughed. “You know nothing, little boy.”
I leaned back in my chair, and said, “Really. Tamamo no Mae, Yabe and Sakai. Do those names mean anything to you?”
He raised his third eyebrow that was half-covered in silver tape. “Many people know those names from all the stories. You still know nothing. I am only one. Eliminate me and three will carry out the order.”
I barked at him, “Who ordered you to do this?” I was trying to remain calm, but this guy made my blood boil.
He looked up at the ceiling, and said c
asually, “Crafty response. But not crafty enough. Keep guessing about that.”
I blew up, “Where the fuck are you hiding Cyclone Woman?”
He looked down at the table, ignoring me. I screamed, “Where the fuck is she?”
Kobayashi chuckled and burped. “You’ll have to excuse me. I had a little extra garlic powder in my Bloody Mary earlier. It just doesn’t agree with me the way it used to.”
I slammed my fist on the table and said, “Enough of the fun and games. You do realize we can keep you locked up as long as we want.”
Despite his hands being cuffed behind him, he cracked his knuckles, one by one, as he spoke, “I know enough of the legal system in America to know that I won’t be held very long for the crime I am suspected of.”
I threatened him, “Oh, but you will stay here until trial if we slap a kidnapping and attempted murder charge on your record.” I was talking out of my ass and hoped he didn’t know any better.
“You cannot pervert the system like that. It would be dishonorable.” He looked up at me with an evil grin. “I’m told that you aren’t permitted to act without honor.”
“Dishonorable. I like that word. See, I think that it’s dishonorable to kidnap a Native American spirit so that you can control the weather and use it for your own destructive purposes. It’s dishonorable to kill innocent people. That’s what I think.”
Kobayashi pushed his lips out and shrugged his shoulders. He tilted his head to the side and said, “Who is truly innocent in this world? Has not everyone committed a sin in their day?”
“The key is to stop it and never commit those sins again.”
He bobbed his head from side to side, weighing my words. “Perhaps our definitions of honor clash a bit.”
I argued, “There is only one definition. Wait. I’m not having this stupid argument with you.” I couldn’t let him get me off track. I needed to harness my anger. “Tell me where Cyclone Woman is or you aren’t going to see the outside of this place. And lots of accidents happen in here. Better be careful.” I hoped he wouldn’t call my bluff.
